


Fun With Portals

by LoveRun



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Angst and Humour, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, BAMF Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Bisexual Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Geralt loves that, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Apologizes, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Apologies, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Feelings, Geraskier, Good Parent Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Good Parent Jaskier | Dandelion, Good Parent Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Humor, Humour, Jaskier is angry, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg Friendship, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, OT3, POV Multiple, Parent Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Parent Jaskier | Dandelion, Parent Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Polyamory, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Protective Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Revenge, Throuple, Yennefer of Vengerberg has Had Enough, Yennskier, Yenralt, geraskefer, let's talk about our feelings, mentioned Nenneke, mentioned/cameo Stefan Skellen, portals as a form of warfare, revenge quest, spelling it both ways because i am british and this is my fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:47:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28591248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveRun/pseuds/LoveRun
Summary: Yennefer finds out that a Nilfgaardian task force is after Ciri. she's investigating why when two unwelcome but very familiar faces turn up...
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Rhiannon & Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Emhyr var Emreis, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Yennefer of Vengerberg & Triss Merigold
Comments: 24
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for the books and also possibly future series of the show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer is trying to get some information but has an unwelcome interruption
> 
> Jaskier is trying to play a banquet and has a very _welcome_ interruption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoilers for the books/possibly for the TV show
> 
> constructive criticism always welcome!
> 
> i thought i was done writing about these idiots but i had a scene in my mind that i could not stop thinking about so here we go again...

“I won’t lie to you, Stefan,” Yennefer informed the terrified man sprawled on the forest floor before her. “As a direct result of your actions, death is all that awaits you. You do still have some control, however. You can answer my questions, and die quickly without experiencing the pain you deserve. Or you can refuse to answer, and die slowly and in considerable agony.”

Yennefer had been watching the man’s hand sneak towards his pocket in her peripheral vision, careful to keep her eyes on his face. Even if she hadn’t noticed his hand’s slow creep, the man’s thoughts were hardly subtle; it would have been harder _not_ to hear what he was planning. She was therefore ready when his hand emerged from his pocket and hurled something at her. She leaned slightly to her left in time to hear his missile whir past her right ear and embed itself in the tree behind her. Judging by the high-pitched whistle it emitted as it went, it was an Orion throwing star.

The Orion had sheared a leaf from the branch behind her in its flight. The colour drained most satisfyingly from Stefan’s face as Yennefer straightened up, brushing the leaf from her sleeve. She treated him to her sweetest smile.

“Slow and agonising it is then, Mr Skellen,” she told him amiably. That was fine by her. She’d picked a good spot in a pretty forest clearing with a leyline running through it as source of Chaos for her. The evening weather was fine and warm. She was in no rush; Yennefer meant to enjoy this. She took a step towards the prone Stefan, raising her hands to trace a sigil in the air. Skellen raised his own arms as if in surrender, opened his mouth to begin spilling the secrets she needed access to… only to cut himself off with a choke, looking down at his chest in horror.

Yennefer stared at hist chest too. Something about it drew the eye. It could have been the golden Nilfgaardian sun embroidered on his black shirt, or the ostentatious chain he wore around his neck to display his wealth. But perhaps it was the large steel sword that had flown through the air and embedded itself point-down in his ribs.

Skellen gaped at it for a moment, mouthing soundlessly as blood trickled from his lips. His fingers scrabbled ineffectually at the razor edges of the sword, their useless efforts growing weaker by the second as blood so dark it was almost black soaked into the forest floor.

Yennefer whirled around before Stefan finished gasping. He wasn’t worth the time it would take her to watch him die. He’d been dead for a while, anyway – he was already dead from the moment he’d crossed her. She’d told him so herself. But he wasn’t supposed to die before he told her what she wanted to know. Besides, she recognised the brooch attached to the hilt of that sword…

“Geralt!” She demanded, hands fisted at her sides. 

The Witcher stepped out from behind an elm tree. His hair was in a full bun rather than his usual half-up style. His silver-studded armour encased almost all of him, glinting in the red light of the setting sun that filtered through the canopy above.

“It’s good to see you, Yenn,” he told her. He tried to move past her towards the lump of cooling flesh that was all that was left of Stefan Skellen. Yenn moved so that she was squarely in his way and planted her feet. 

“I wish I could say the same,” she spat, furious. As always happened when she was enraged, her mind reached out unconsciously and began gathering Chaos to herself. She heard Geralt’s medallion hum in recognition as she siphoned power from the leyline to her own reserves. “Why did you kill him?”

“I…” he began.

“Let me rephrase that,” she interrupted. “Why did you kill him _before he told me what I need to know?”_

He looked away, staring at a clump of ferns rather than her furious gaze. “He attacked you.”

“So? What of it? The only way that Orion would have hit me is if I wanted it to. He was useful to me, Geralt. But now he’s dead, and all I have to show for my efforts is a Witcher with a saviour complex. What good is that, might I ask? None.”

A blink of white-lashed eyelids over topaz eyes was the only sign that her words had hit home. Hate flared inside her, cold and intense, at how a blink could make her feel so wretchedly guilty. The guilt made her even more angry, though she couldn’t say if she were more angry at Geralt of herself over that.

“Forgive me?” He murmured eventually. In lieu of an answer she simply stared at him, letting him shrivel under her gaze. After several long moments, she stood aside to allow him to retrieve his sword from its resting place in Stefan’s chest. “How’s Ciri?” He asked as he pulled a cloth from his pocket and began methodically cleaning the blood from his blade.

Yennefer made a _how should I know?_ gesture and fixed him with a sardonic look that he couldn’t see. Geralt kept his eyes fixed firmly on his sword.

“D’you know, I’m not sure. A while ago I took her to Thanedd in the middle of a heated battle between two rival mage factions who were both trying to take over the Brotherhood, but then I lost her in all the fighting. But she’s a smart girl, I’m sure she’s fine.”

Geralt’s head snapped up, his eyes meeting hers for the first time since the dragon hunt. _“What?!”_

Yenn rolled her eyes. “That was a joke, Geralt. Obviously. What kind of idiot do you take me for? She’s safe at the Temple. Nenneke won’t let Ciri out of her sight.”

“Hn,” Geralt grunted, returning to cleaning his sword. The gesture felt like a dismissal, a penultimate straw landing on the already overburdened back of Yennefer’s patience. Her forbearance was sturdy, carefully cultivated over decades of boredom and frustration in Aedirn’s court, and yet a few minutes in Geralt’s presence had pushed it to its limit as he piled on insult on injury. She’s surprised he can’t hear it creaking.

“How’s Jaskier?” she asks, changing the subject to give herself a chance to calm down. Geralt shrugs, stands, the picture of nonchalance though he’s still refusing to meet her eye. She hears her patience creak louder under the strain of the Witcher’s apparent disinterest in the welfare of his best friend. Her hands reflexively shift into a sign for hexing one’s opponent.

“Haven’t seen him since King Niedamir’s mountains.” Geralt meets her eye for the second time since she stormed away from him as he stood beside the last golden dragon. “Thank you for teaching Ciri to control her Power.”

“Of course,” she tells him distractedly, concentrating on keeping her voice level.

“I mean it, Yenn. I’m truly grateful. I didn’t know if you would. I didn’t think you’d want to.”

Yennefer has lived a long time. She’s heard many insulting things in that long lifetime. When she was young, before her transformation, she’d thought that becoming a Sorceress would mean she’d ascend to a plane where no one would dare to insult her. If anything, though, she’s been more frequently disparaged since gaining control over Chaos than she was as the hunchbacked daughter of a peasant. Men, she came to realise early after her transformation, could not cope with a powerful woman, and so endeavoured to drag her down with slanders.

Yes, she’s heard some insulting things in her time. But somehow, Geralt’s _I didn’t think you’d want to_ is the worst of them all.

With a jolt, Yennefer’s temper finally breaks. She lets out a scream of rage and pushes Geralt with two hands on his stupid broad chest. He’s strong, but she has Chaos on her side and shoves with enough power for force him off balance. He falls backwards, arms windmilling as he tries to right himself.

Most mages don’t use portals as a form of combat, complaining that they use up too much Chaos and concentration. But most mages aren’t Yennefer of Vengerberg. She pulls raw Chaos from the leyline and from the air itself, the magic causing a wind that whips her black curls around her face in a dark halo. The rock of the forest floor cracks from the speed with which she drags the magic from the Earth to herself. She siphons power from the underground river she can sense flowing deep beneath her feet. There is no fire around, so she reaches down and draws energy from the molten rock and magma flowing fathoms deep in the earth itself. She feels her eyes flare with Chaos. When she grins, sparks glint off her teeth and fingers. 

Geralt is still off balance. She opens a portal behind him and forces him through with a blast that is to Aard what the sea is to a puddle. He topples through the swirling vortex of Chaos, his usual mask of indifference slipping to reveal a look of surprised horror on his face. She laughs, and strides after him through the torn fabric of the universe.

Yennefer knows that most Witchers hate portals, Geralt particularly. She uses this, pushing him through portal after portal, keeping him perpetually off balance and disorientated.

They’re in a desert; she delivers a devastating gut punch and brings her knee up to meet his face as he instinctively curls up over his injured stomach. She pushes again; they’re on a mountain top, the wind pulling at her hair as she materialises behind him and kicks him in the back of the knee, sending him sprawling on the ground. She digs her heel into a pressure point on his back that makes him groan with pain before opening another portal immediately under him. The portal exit lets out several feet into the air, causing the Witcher to fall onto the jagged rocks at the base of an Arcsea cliff hard enough to wind him. Yennefer steps into existence on the shore beside him. Before he can catch his breath, she sends him through another portal – but this time she does not follow him. She waits on the beach for almost three minutes, studying her nails and brushing her hair back into position, letting the crush and pressure of the deep-sea trench she’s sent him to do its work. Eventually she relents, summoning him back to dry land and watching him cough up what seems to be several lungfulls of sea water. 

He’s managed to hold on to his sword, she sees, clutching its hilt even as he splutters and retches. He opens one eye a slit, using his free hand to push seaweed and hair that’s gone steel-grey with water out of his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he breathes.

The fury swells up once more. She kicks him in the kidney, then opens a portal and rolls him into it with a kick and follows him through. She’s going to tear out his fucking eyes.

Music and chatter swirled through the air like smoke, filling the cavernous feasting hall to bursting. Lord Dallow followed the peacocking musician towards the buffet table, anticipatory malice gleaming in his eyes. He’d spent the first half of the feast wondering why the bard leading the band had seemed so familiar. The second half had been spent drinking hard and sulking even harder, glaring at the singer as he belted out song after song on the raised dais that the musicians had made their home. Now, as the bard took a break, Lord Dallow saw his opportunity and seized it.

He grabbed the musician by the scruff of the neck and hauled him backwards and away from the food table. The bard flailed as he was jolted away, knocking several platters from the buffet and sending food rolling away across the mosaic floor of the hall. Several people in the vicinity swore and jumped back, keen to save their best party clothes from being splattered with food. Most of the other part guests had fallen silent, staring. Lord Dallow did not care.

“It _is_ you!” He declared triumphantly, words only slurred slightly with the drink. “I knew it!”

The bard – Jaskier, Lord Dallow’s memory supplied very belatedly – had turned around with a hopeful look on his face, unusual in someone who’s just been manhandled none too gently by the collar of their best silk doublet. When he saw that it was Lord Dallow who’d done the manhandling, though, his expression changed to that of forced jollity; the practiced mask of a performer dealing with an unhappy audience member.

“Yes, it’s me! Jaskier the bard, at your service.” The musician bowed with a ridiculous flourish. “If you’re here to tell me how much you enjoyed my set so far, could it possibly wait until I’ve had a chance to raid the buffet? There’s hardly any lamprey left and I’m quite partial to it…”

“No I’ll _not_ wait,” Lord Dallow declared through gritted teeth. He fisted his hand in the front of the bard’s doublet, backing him into the table and sending even more dishes crashing to the ground. “You’re the thrice-accursed singer who wrote that song about me two summers ago!”

“I – oh, mind the oysters – I, I, I’m sorry but I think you must have mistaken me for someone else,” Jaskier smiled disarmingly and patted Lord Dallow’s hand. “Don’t worry about it, it happens all the time. I must have one of those faces, you know. Now if you could just let go of my…”

“I’m not mistaken,” Lord Dallow insisted, pulling the bard by his doublet until they were almost nose-to-nose. “They still sing it in the village tavern! I can’t get any damn respect from any of my serfs since the day you wrote that damn song!”

The bard’s blue eyes fixed on Lord Dallow’s face for a moment, as if trying to place it. Then his countenance brightened. 

“Lord Dallow? From Cidaris?”

“That’s right,” Lord Dallow snarled. 

Jaskier nodded eagerly. “And the song… was it about how you’re a tight-fisted miser who wouldn’t pay an honest Witcher for a contract on a nest of Bruxae?”

“Yes,” Lord Dallow spat.

Jaskier grinned, nodding faster. “And does the song also mention that you’re a poor lover as well as an awful landlord, leaving everyone you encounter dissatisfied?”

“That’s in the chorus,” Lord Dallow growled.

“That settles it,” Jaskier said, prising Lord Dallow’s fingers from his doublet with remarkable strength. “It couldn’t be me. I’ve never heard of you _or_ that song. Especially the bit about your lack of intellectual prowess.”

Lord Dallow felt his brow crease. “The song doesn’t say anything about my intellectual prowess.”

“Not yet,” Jaskier agreed amiably. “But new verses turn up all the time, don’t they? It’s not up to mere mortals to dictate when the Muse strikes!” 

Through the fog of booze and anger, Lord Dallow got the feeling that the conversation had got away from him. “Yes, I suppose that… hey!” The words of the last few minutes finally caught up with him and he reached for the dagger on his belt, ready to run this arrogant bard through. The singer’s blue eyes widened in horror. “I’ll teach you some manners you little shit…”

He thrust the blade towards the soft and unprotected belly of the conceited musician, teeth gritted in a rictus grin of revenge. Instead of the silken feel and hot rush of a dagger finding its home in someone’s guts, however, he was met with a _clang_ as sharp steel met the thick metal of a platter, turning it harmlessly aside. The weaselly bard had seized it from the table and was holding it up like a shield while backing away. Impatient, Lord Dallow seized the platter and tossed it aside. He raised his dagger once more, ready to stab the cornered musician.

An almighty _crash_ reverberated through the room as a huge, white-haired man and a tall, raven-haired woman materialised in mid-air over the banquet. As Lord Dallow stared, they seemed to hang there for a moment before gravity reasserted itself and brought them tumbling down onto the spread, neatly taking out the food that hadn’t been spilled by Lord Dallow in his scuffle with Jaskier.

As he watched, frozen with dagger raised and mouth open, the woman landed on top of the man and dealt him several blows to the face and body while he did his best to shield himself from her fury. It was clear he was fighting a losing battle. The rest of the ball’s guests were rooted in place too, staring at the impromptu fist fight in wonder.

“You’re _sorry!?”_ The woman demanded, still raining punches on the man beneath her who could do nothing but attempt to shield his face from the worst of the hits. “Fuck you, Geralt. Fuck. You.”

With that, the woman – a sorceress, evidently – opened another portal and grabbed the white-haired man by the lapels. Teeth clenched, she rolled them both, taking them through the portal.

Lord Dallow was the first to unfreeze. The interlude hadn’t allowed enough time for his rage to cool, and he had a bard to deal with after all…

He swept the hall with his gaze. The bard would probably have used the distraction to run, but he couldn’t have got too far…

His eyes lit on the musician almost instantly. The fool hadn’t run; he was standing right where he had been before Lord Dallow was interrupted, lute still strapped to his back! Lord Dallow grinned and raised his dagger once more, keen to finally taste satisfaction.

“You know,” the bard said conversationally, “If you don’t want bards to write songs about what a tight-fisted arsehole you are, you could try _not_ being a tight-fisted arsehole.”

There were a few cautious laughs from those guests standing close enough to hear. Lord Dallow growled and lurched forwards.

“Bye!” Jaskier said brightly. He jumped backwards, disappearing into the portal and flicking the Vs with both hands as he did so.

“No!” Lord Dallow bellowed. He jumped after the bard, but the portal had shrunk too much to pass through.

“I never did to try that lamprey,” Lord Dallow heard the bard complain as the portal closed completely. “I think most of it ended up on your shoe, Yenn…”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reunions don't always go smoothly
> 
> inferiority complexes. inferiority complexes for all!

From the corner of his eye, Geralt sees the telltale warping of reality as Yenn’s magic punches a hole in the world. She grabs him by the front of his armour and rolls him from the table she had him pinned to – a dining table, he assumes, judging by the fork jammed into the small of his back – and into the wound she’d torn in the universe with sheer force of will. As he turns, Geralt catches a flash of bright-coloured silk from the corner of his eye, a familiar scent of wood and lavender tugging at scabbed-over memories somewhere in the recesses of his mind. And then he is falling.

Geralt’s stomach lurches horrifyingly as he leaves the room with the table and reappears somewhere he doesn’t recognise. In the last location, the floor had been on his left as Yennefer dragged him through the portal. When they re-emerge at their new destination, the floor is above his head. Gravity, as if angry to have lost its grip on him, reasserts itself when the ground rushes up to reclaim the errant Witcher.

“Ow,” Geralt complains as the floor hit him. It was the rocky floor of a forest. It hurt.

Yennefer, luckily, has a softer landing. Geralt’s already-bruised body complains loudly as she thumps into him, seeming to be all elbows and knees. She rolls off him immediately, as if unwilling to be in contact with him unless it was with her fists. A magpie cackles from the branch of an oak tree, as if the spectacle they provided was put on for its amusement.

Geralt, eyes closed against the lights that and exploded in his vision when his skull hit the ground, hears the sound of boots landing on the floor, a sound which he knows to be impossible. Yenn wouldn’t allow anyone else through the portal. He must have hit his head hard enough to cause auditory hallucinations. That’s not good…

Fortunately, the now-familiar and forever blessed sound of a portal closing echoes against the trees circling them. At least she won’t drag him back through another gateway, for a moment at least. Maybe he can talk to her and calm her down, or at least convince her to beat him up in one place to spare him the added agony of the portals…

“I never did to try that lamprey,” a familiar voice says. Geralt’s eyes snap open. “I think most of it ended up on your shoe, Yenn…”

“Jaskier!?” Geralt asks, incredulously. 

“Geralt,” Jaskier says coolly. Somehow he’s on his feet while Yenn and Geralt are still sprawled on the ground. Jaskier extends his hand and Geralt automatically moves to take it, but Jaskier’s hand keeps moving until it comes to a stop in front of Yennefer. Her lips quirk into a smug smile as she takes it and heaves herself to her feet. Geralt hastily redirects his hand to brush the hair out of his eyes. _Idiot,_ he scolds himself. _Of course Jaskier wouldn’t help you up. Why would he?_

Yennefer looks down at her lamprey-covered shoe in distaste. She concentrates for a moment and the fish disappears, leaving her boot pristine again. She’s still holding Jaskier’s hand.

“You’re welcome,” she tells the bard.

“Uh… isn’t that my line?” Jaskier asks, confused. _“I_ just helped _you_ up, yes?”

“That nobleman was about to gut you.” Yenn says matter-of-factly. “If I hadn’t turned up to get you out of there, you’d have to try and learn to sing with your throat cut.”

Jaskier waves a dismissive hand, then strikes a dashing pose. “I’m Jaskier, the most accomplished bard on the continent, Master of the Seven Liberal Arts and envy of lesser musicians from Nilfgaard to Poviss. I could make it work.”

Yennefer snorts, rolling her eyes. Jaskier looks around, taking in the forest scene. Ancient trees stretch up all around them, blocking out the sun that has almost completely set and leaving them in the gloaming. The birds which, apart from the magpie, had been shocked into silence at the sudden appearance of three humans in their clearing begin singing again. A fallen tree grows thick with fungus that seems almost iridescently, bone white in the gathering dark. Jaskier wrinkles his nose.

“You couldn’t have portalled us to somewhere with wine? Entertainment? Culture? Wine?” Jaskier asks. “Ow,” he adds when Yennefer drops his hand to punch him on the arm. 

“Right, yep, right. A random forest clearing, exactly like the ones I’ve wasted the last two decades of my life in. Good. Just where I hoped you’d take me. Thank you, Yennefer,” Jaskier reaches into a pocket and pulls out a flask, expertly popping the cork out with a thumb and taking a swig before offering it to Yenn, who shakes her head in distaste.

“I’ll wait until there’s something more palatable to drink,” she tells him.

“Oh, come on, Yennefer,” Jaskier says wiggling the flask in front of her nose. “You and I both know that you’ve drunk worse and enjoyed it.”

Geralt begins to get up, convinced he’ll have to save Jaskier Yenn’s ire, which usually takes the form of a hex. Yennefer has never had much of a tolerance for being teased.

To Geralt’s shock, Yennefer merely glares at the bard for a moment before swiping the flask from his grip and taking a deep draught. Jaskier grins delightedly. 

“The fuck?” Geralt asks roughly. He’s still on the floor, the rocky surface hard beneath him. Grit scratches at the soft skin between his fingers.

“Why was he trying to kill you?” Yennefer asks as she shudders from the aftertaste of the plum vodka.

“Oh, it was only Lord Dallow. It’s because I wrote a cruel but accurate song about him and taught it to the masses after he refused to pay…” Jaskier’s eyes flick to Geralt and then away. He shrugs. “Because he was rude when I came across him on my travels. It seems he isn’t a fan of my work. There’s no helping some people.”

Geralt remembers that contract. It had taken him four days to completely clear the cluster of necrophages that was terrorising a town on the borders of Cidaris. He’d returned to Lord Dallow’s house bloody and exhausted, only for the man to refuse to pay. Geralt had been too tired to argue – luckily, Jaskier had stepped in and put on his best Viscount voice. He’d charmed the miserly lord into paying them in full and pocketed an antique gold ashtray on the way out. “A tip,” he’d said cheerfully when Geralt growled at him for the misdemeanour. The next day, the rafters of the local pub had shaken from the volume of the villagers singing Jaskier’s new song about their Lord at the tops of their voices. Geralt can’t help but smile at the memory, though the movement tugs at the split lip Yennefer gave him and reopens the wound. Hot blood drips down his chin and splashes onto the armour on his chest.

“Hm,” Yennefer takes another drink. “A song is one way of dealing with an insult, I suppose. Though I generally find that a well-aimed fireball does the trick.”

“There is something to be said for _subtlety,_ Yennefer,” Jaskier informs her imperiously.

“I can be subtle,” Yennefer snaps.

“As a brick to the face,” Jaskier agrees, then holds his hands up as if in surrender when Yennefer narrows her eyes at him in a glare that promises a painful death.

“What,” Geralt tries again, “the fuck?”

Jaskier and Yennefer finally turn towards him. 

Geralt is used to warmth from Jaskier and cool detachment from Yennefer. It could be his mild concussion, but they seem to have switched places. Yennefer glares at him with a smouldering hatred that leaves scorch marks on his skin. Jaskier, on the other hand, stares with an icy look that chills Geralt’s bones.

“Now isn’t the best time, Geralt,” Yennefer tells him. She turns back to Jaskier. “See? Subtle?”

Jaskier laughs, thawing as he turns back to the sorceress. “What about that was subtle?

“Well, now is a _very bad_ time for Geralt’s antics. But all I said was that it wasn’t the best time.”

“Antics?! _You_ brought me here!” Geralt protests. Suppressing a groan, he finally manages to push himself back to his feet.

“Yes, because you gave me no choice. I was about to get all the information I needed from Stefan when you went and killed him. Now we’re back to square one,” Yennefer snarls.

Geralt is pulled up short by the truth of her words. He opens his mouth, only to close it immediately. He looks to Jaskier automatically – he thought he’d stamped out that particular instinct – but, for the first time, receives no help from that quarter. He decides it’s probably safest to study the forest floor instead.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Hm,” Yennefer responds.

“You’re _what!?”_ Jaskier demands.

“I’m sorry,” Geralt repeats, forcing himself not to clench his teeth. 

“You’re sorry? He’s sorry!” Jaskier spreads his arms and shouts it to the whole forest, then turns to Yennefer in incredulity. “Did you hear this, Yenn? He’s _sorry.”_

Geralt feels his brow crease in confusion at the easy way Jaskier’s talking to the mage. “You’re calling her ‘Yenn’. When did you two get so close?”

Jaskier wheels on Geralt, pointing at him like he wishes he were wielding a sword rather than a finger. _“Don’t_ change the subject. You said… you have the _nerve_ to say you’re _sorry_ for killing that arsehole? You think that _that’s_ what you should be apologising for right now!?”

Geralt feels the panic surge up from his stomach towards his chest in a way that hasn’t happened since his first years on the Path, when he still wasn’t sure of himself or his abilities. He looks from Jaskier to Yennefer, who is observing the bard squaring up to the Witcher with dark glee. She looks as if the sight of Jaskier in a temper at Geralt is Yule come early.

“…Yes?” Geralt tries.

It’s the wrong thing to say.

The bard’s hands are always in motion, but Geralt has never seen Jaskier use his fists in anger. They making grand gestures as he speaks or flail wildly when he loses his balance; they strum his lute or bustle around cooking something improbably delicious from the scarce ingredients he can scrape together from an autumn-wrapped forest.

Right now they’re clenched at Jaskier’s sides, perfectly still, as if he can’t trust himself to let them move an inch.

Jaskier steps forward, crowding Geralt until the Witcher is backed into a tree. Despite his mounting panic and the bard’s uncharacteristic aggression, Geralt can’t stop thinking how good it is to see Jaskier again. How it finally feels like he can breathe again, now that he’s around Yennefer. It’s been the best part of two years, and he’d managed to convince himself that he didn’t miss them anymore. That flimsy belief crumbles and blows away under the force of their presence. Geralt feels settled in his skin for the first time since the Mountain. A word surfaces in his mind: home.

Jaskier clearly does not feel the same way. He looks just as youthful as ever, but lines appear on his forehead as rage distorts his face. The bard opens his mouth and suddenly Geralt is no longer merely panicked, but terrified. He knows that Jaskier would never use his hands against him. He also knows that Jaskier doesn’t need to. He’s been present while the Bard eviscerated professional rivals, drunken hecklers and town Aldermen with nothing but a piercing glare and cutting words. 

Yennefer left him. It had hurt almost beyond anything Geralt had ever endured. Worse than the Trials, worse than all the times a monster had come within a hair’s breadth of killing him before he could kill it. The only thing that had matched the agony of Yennefer walking away from him had been Renfri.

And then Jaskier had been there. And Geralt, wild with pain, nothing more than the feral monster people took him for, had turned and bitten the hand that fed him. He could not bear to be left again, as always happened in the end. So he’d done the only thing to stop Jaskier being the next one to leave him: he’d sent Jaskier away on his own terms, and regretted it instantly.

But Jaskier is here now, and so is Yenn. Geralt can’t ignore the wild sort of joy he feels at seeing them, and seeing them _together._ The joy curdles instantly to terror. They will leave him. It’s all he deserves.

And Jaskier is opening his mouth, ready to tell Geralt all the awful things about himself that he already knows to be true. To tell him that he never wants to see the White Wolf again as long as he lives; to curse the day that they met in that shitty Posadan pub. Geralt has the sudden, ridiculous urge to stop whatever Jaskier is about to say with a kiss, and then it’s too late.

“Why, Geralt?” Jaskier demands. “Fucking _why?_ I mean, I get it, I understand, I’m a lot, and everyone has enough of me eventually. But they don’t travel around the Continent with me for half a lifetime as an, I don’t know, some kind of ironic Witcher joke!” Jaskier’s eyes are always bright, but Geralt catches the shimmer of hot tears fighting against the dam of his eyelids. Jaskier brushes them away impatiently. “I convinced myself you liked me. You let me think we were friends. Why did you do that, when all I was to you was a burden? It’s alright that you don’t like me, Geralt, but to trick me into thinking that we had something… that we were… that was just cruel, Geralt. It was cruel.”

Geralt blinks. _What?_

“Jaskier…” he begins, but stops short almost immediately. It doesn’t make sense. How could Jaskier think…

“Geralt,” Jaskier responds. More tears fall from his overflowing eyes, staining the sapphire silk of his doublet to a navy blue. He still smells like wood and lavender and it mixes with Yennefer’s lilac and gooseberry so that the scents combine into something new, something that smells like _home._ But Jaskier thinks that Geralt only ever saw him as a nuisance when he was the best friend any Witcher ever has and Geralt has to find the words, has to work out how to tell him…

“Jaskier,” Geralt tries again. “Jaskier, I…”

He’s cut off by a roar that shakes the forest around them. A shower of leaves descends from the canopy and patters to the ground. The flock of birds takes panicked flight, darkening the sky with their wings and filling the air with warning cries. Geralt reaches back automatically, bringing his sword hissing from its sheath. His medallion begins to vibrate, jittering so hard it bounces against his chest like a second frantic heartbeat.

“Yennefer,” Geralt says as he scans the treeline. “Did you take us back to the same forest I met you in earlier?”

Yennefer has fallen into a half-crouch, her hands glowing as she readies a defensive spell. “Yes,” she admits. “Why?”

“Because I was here on a contract,” with his free hand, Geralt reaches for his potions, only to find a mess of broken glass phials and spilled decoction. They must have smashed in his fight with Yenn. “Fuck.”

Jaskier clutches his lute strap and eyes the forest with a mix of apprehension and excitement. There’s a peculiar gleam in his eye that’s only there when he senses material for a new ballad. The idiot bard never did learn when to be worried. “What were you hunting?”

Geralt opens his mouth to answer. He is saved the bother of speaking when the Leshy bursts through the bushes and into the clearing, roaring as it comes, its huge tree-like arms rushing towards him and the people Geralt loves.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ciri receives some difficult news

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAJOR spoilers for books and probably TV show  
> it's a Ciri chapter folks!  
> don't worry, we'll be back with your regularly scheduled trio adventures in the next chapter.

The Leshy launched itself at Geralt, its claws visibly elongating and sharpening as it flew through the air. The moonlight filtering through the canopy above dapples the Leshy’s bark-like skin, illuminating the grotesque movement of its eldritch limbs. Geralt grabs Jaskier by his shirt and pushes him back, stepping in front of the bard to act as a shield. Jaskier stumbles but sensibly keeps moving towards the cover of the treeline, fishing in his pack as he goes to retrieve a pencil and leather-bound notebook. He’s already scribbling furiously by the time he reaches a tree to hide behind. Geralt tightens his grip on his sword and moves sideways, away from Jaskier, drawing the Leshy towards himself. 

On the other side of the clearing, Yennefer steps back, her dark dress and hair allowing her to almost disappear into the night, a deeper shadow against the treeline. She wears the look of strained concentration that means she’s summoning large amounts of Chaos to herself, gritting her teeth against the pain that comes with the power. A fireball starts forming in each of her palms.

The Leshy roars again, rearing back to swipe at Geralt from a greater height. Geralt has been backed into a rock wall on the edge of the clearing and has nowhere to dodge or take cover. He raises his sword to protect himself as best he can from the Leshy’s blow. He looks comically tiny beneath the Leshy’s towering form, his sword laughably delicate compared to the thick hide and sheer force of the Leshy. 

The creature’s arm reaches its zenith and comes down, gathering speed as it hurtles towards the vulnerable Witcher…

“No!”

Ciri sat bold upright, panting as the horror of the nightmare continued to rampage through her mind. She stares around the room, confused to find herself in her chamber rather than in a monster-infested forest clearing. Ciri sits still for a moment, worried that her cry would bring Mother Nenneke running. Mother Nenneke is a kind woman, but the nightmare’s horror still had a tight grip on Ciri’s heart, and she didn’t think she was up to the High Priestess’s signature form of tough love just yet.

Fortunately, no sound of hurried footsteps sounded outside the door. Nenneke must have slept through Ciri’s shouting. 

_I should be used to nightmares by now,_ Ciri mused distractedly. She’d had them every night since _that night,_ when the man with the winged helmet had… no. She won’t think of it.

Ciri’s breathing slowed as she got her bearings. She was under her blankets, next to Lady Yennefer’s king sized bed. Yennefer’s workbench ran along the length of the room, covered in a forest of glass phials and equipment. The little space cleared at the end of the workbench for Ciri to conduct her own experiments was the same as it had always been, complete with a large blackened scorch mark where her first potion had exploded with enough force to remove Ciri’s eyebrows and a good portion of the wall. Yennefer had laughed herself sick at that, then told Ciri to wipe her tears before launching into the stories of the havoc she had caused in the Aretuza greenhouse. 

“Believe me,” Yennefer had said. “Nothing you can do will be as bad as me wiping out Tissaia’s prize tobacco crop. That was seven and a half decades ago, and she still hasn’t forgiven me. A sorceress rarely forgives, Ciri. Because people rarely deserve to be forgiven.”

A fresh wave of misery swept over Ciri at the memory. Yennefer had left days ago, throwing supplies and amulets into a satchel and promising Ciri she’d be back soon before disappearing through a portal with a last call of “Goodbye, ugly duckling. Remember: a Sorceress is tenacious!”

Ciri hadn’t heard anything from Yennefer since, and cold dread was beginning to get the better of her. What if something had happened to her? What if she’d decided that having adventures was better than teaching some useless, ugly, orphaned princess and Yennefer never came back? That’s what Geralt had done after all…

 _That’s not fair,_ Ciri chided herself. _Geralt left you here for safety. Melitele’s Temple is the safest place on the Continent. _Ciri knew that this was true, but she found herself struggling to believe it. Everyone had left her: Dara had gone back to Brokilon, Mousesack was gone, Eist was dead, her grandmother had sent her away. It made sense that Geralt would send her away too, wouldn’t it?__

__Ciri shook her head to banish those thoughts, focusing on a moonbeam that had found its way through the thick curtains that Yennefer had installed. _I’m Geralt’s destiny. He wouldn’t abandon me; he did it because he had to. Besides, he couldn’t help you control the Power. Lady Yennefer can.__ _

__Ciri couldn’t help the swelling of pride that rose in her chest when she thought of her Power. In just a few months of learning from Lady Yennefer, she had gone from being unable to use even basic Witcher signs to casting spells of moderate complexity. Maybe Lady Yennefer would let her try some fire magic soon…_ _

__The sky outside the windows was still dark. Ciri blinked and snuggled down under the blankets – there was still time to sleep before she had to get up. It was just a nightmare earlier, she reassured herself; Geralt and Yennefer and that bard who sometimes used to play at Cintra weren’t really facing a Leshy. Even if they were, they’d surely be fine…_ _

__Ciri knows she’s dreaming again when she sees the water. The Temple of Melitele is in Ellander, which is about as far inland as you can get while still being in Temeria. The familiar briny smell of the sea reaches her nose as the coastline that she knows well enough to draw from memory swims into focus. It’s Skellige._ _

__She turns in a circle to take it all in: the jagged mountains rising almost vertically towards the sky, tipped with snow so white it hurt the eye to look at. The jetty beneath her feet creaks, the old wood pocked and aged just as she remembers it being. The ships anchored in the harbour rocked in time with the saves lapping into shore, sails fluttering and snapping in the wind._ _

__Ciri had spent half of every year Skellige, with Eist’s side of the family. Every year until… she stopped that thought with a speed and effectiveness born of months of practice. This was a beautiful dream, or a lovely memory. Possibly both. She would not allow it to be sullied by thoughts of _that night,_ or what had happened afterwards. _ _

__As Ciri watched the churning ocean and the sea froth that bubbled a pristine white and rushed up to stain the beach with its suds, the breeze on her face grew fainter and fainter until it stopped completely. The waves became smaller and smaller until there was barely a ripple on the water’s surface. The ripple spread and grew fainter until the water was completely still._ _

__Oh…kay. Definitely a dream, then._ _

__Ciri looked around the deserted harbour, but found no one else to share her surprise. She knelt down on the edge of the jetty and reached down to the water, to feel for herself its unnatural stillness._ _

__“Don’t lean too far over the side, love. You might overbalance and fall in.”_ _

__Ciri froze, her eyes still on the reflection of her hand on the water that seemed to reach for her as she reached for it. She should have been frightened, but some deep part of her knew that voice and understood that it meant one thing: safety._ _

__Ciri sat up and looked at the woman sat beside her on the jetty. She had a thick plait of ash-grey hair pulled over her shoulder to snake down her chest and wide-set eyes that matched the emerald green of her dress. The view of the ocean was beautiful, but the woman’s eyes were fixed on Ciri’s face._ _

__“Mam?” Ciri breathed._ _

__Pavetta grinned. “Ciri.”_ _

__Ciri threw her arms around her mother’s form, inhaling deeply the long-forgotten smell of books and hyacinth that had always followed Pavetta wherever she went. With it came dozens of memories: sitting with Pavetta in the library as Ciri coloured and Pavetta read poetry. The sound of arguing voices outside Ciri’s nursery door. Biscuits still hot from the oven that Pavetta had brought from the kitchen to Ciri’s schoolroom as a treat. Ciri’s father storming out of the room and slamming the door. Pavetta forbidding Ciri to join her on a voyage, instead sending Ciri back down the gangway to stand beside Eist on this very jetty to watch as her parents sailed away for the last time._ _

__“Oh, Ciri. I’ve missed you, darling.”_ _

__Ciri sobbed into Pavetta’s shoulder. “I missed you too.”_ _

__Pavetta’s arms tightened around Ciri, cradling her close and rubbing her back in a soothing gesture that aches in its familiarity. Ciri cries harder, burying her head in the fabric of Pavetta’s dress._ _

__Once Ciri has shed all the tears she has, she sits back. Pavetta reaches out to stroke a strand of ash-grey hair, the exact same shade as her own, from Ciri’s forehead._ _

__“It’s so good to see you, love, but we haven’t got long. I came with a warning for you.”_ _

__Ciri scrubbs at her eyes with the heel of her hand. The dream shoreline feels eerily quiet without the sound of waves and seagulls. “A warning?”_ _

__“Yes.” A look of guilt finds on Pavetta’s face and sets up camp. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, love. I should have protected you, but I didn’t know who he was. _What_ he was. Not until it was too late.”_ _

__“He? Who?”_ _

__Pavetta studies her with seaweed-green eyes. “Emhyr. Your father.”_ _

__Ciri feels her brow crease in confusion. “But my father’s name was Duny.”_ _

__Pavetta nods. “That’s what he told everyone. But he’s actually Emhyr var Emreis, Emperor of Nilfgaard and the biggest arsehole on the continent.”_ _

__Ciri almost recoils at the words. “No, that’s not true. You and my father adored each other, everyone says so. This must be a trap. You’re not my mother; you’re just a trick sent to distract me. My mother loved my father.”_ _

__Pavetta sighs. “I adored him. For much longer than I should have, really, even after his true nature came through. He wooed me when I was barely older than you, Ciri. I had no idea what the world was truly like, or how to tell the bastards and opportunists from people who were my true friends. Emhyr was older, my father’s age. He took advantage of that and fooled me. He never cared about me. He only pursued me because an astrologer told him it was the way to break his curse.”_ _

__Ciri fought the childish urge to cover her ears with her hands. This couldn’t be true. She spoke again, though even to her own ears it sounded like she was clutching at straws. “You’re lying. You’re not really here to warn me. I’ve had prophetic dreams before. They’re never obvious or easy to understand. If this were real, you’d be giving me some cryptic riddle, not…” she waved her hand between Pavetta and herself “doling out secrets in a way that I can understand.”_ _

__Pavetta laughs, and oh, Ciri’s missed that sound. “Oh yes, the prophetic dreams. I had them too, you know. They come with the Power. We’ve got our ancestor Lara Dorren to thank for that. I was always frustrated that they were so ridiculously difficult to understand, more interested in sounding mystical than being helpful. I always asked them why didn’t they just come out and say what they meant. So I promised myself that if I ever got the chance to give a prophecy, I’d be much more clear about things.”_ _

__“But… you can’t be in my dream. You drowned when your ship went down in a storm.” Ciri mumbled, staring at the worn fabric of her leggings rather than the apparition. Every sense she had was telling her that this woman sat next to her was her mother, but Ciri still refused to believe it._ _

__“Oh, darling. The ship didn’t go down in a storm. The tempest blew up when I died, not before; another gift from Lara. When one of our bloodline dies, the sea knows, and it grieves. Storms blown up from the sadness of the ocean don’t happen often, but they’re vicious when they do.” Pavetta studied the horizon for a moment, as if weighing up her next words before saying them. “Your father pushed me overboard. _That’s_ what caused the storm.”_ _

__“Then why wasn’t the ship found?” If Ciri can just outsmart this vision, trick it into giving itself away, she can go back to living in a world where her parents were good, and kind, and loved each other. She’s desperate to go back to that world._ _

__“Emhyr had a powerful mage as an ally. That sorcerer portalled the ship away.”_ _

__Ciri jumps up, bunching her fists at her side and wishing for her Witcher sword. She’s off balance without its counterweight hanging from her belt, anchoring her._ _

__“I don’t believe you,” Ciri snarls, trying to sound as certain as Geralt and as fierce as Yennefer, and failing miserably._ _

__Pavetta remains seated, staring up at Ciri with a look so loving that Ciri can hardly bear to look at it. _Trust me,_ the look says. _No one could look at you like this could have anything but your best interests at heart.__ _

__“I didn’t believe my mother when she warned me against Emhyr either. I should have done a better job at protecting you from him – keeping you off that ship so his mage couldn’t portal you away wasn’t good enough. I’m so sorry for failing you, my darling. But you’re going to have to do what I couldn’t; you’ll have to stop him. Remember: false friends can hide behind the sweetest words and most golden promises. Once they have you where they want you, only pain waits for you. Don’t trust anyone who hasn’t proved themselves worthy of it.”_ _

__Pavetta reached out and grasped Ciri’s hand. Tears streamed down her face as she squeezed it and smiled up at her daughter._ _

__Blinding light burst through the scene. Ciri bolted upright, tangled in her sheets and face wet with tears that she hastily wiped away._ _

__“Good morning, Ciri!” Mother Nenneke called as she threw open another set of curtains. “Time you were up! Come on, lazy bones! Breakfast is almost over!”_ _


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> how not to fight a Leshy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i haven't played the games, just read the books and seen the show. so if i've been inaccurate when describing the Leshy... blame those media for not including them!

The Leshy, somehow skeletal and wooden at the same time, seems comically huge in the clearing. A stink rolls off it, of sweat and fur and mold, and the promise of a really fucking unpleasant immediate future. Geralt groans.

There’s nowhere to run. The monster has backed him into a solid rock wall, cut off his retreat. Geralt feels the gritty surface crumble slightly as his back presses into it. Vesemir would be apoplectic if he knew Geralt had allowed himself to be put in this position. At least if he’s dead, Geralt won’t have to see the look on Vesemir’s face when another Witcher doesn’t make it back to Kaer Morhen for the winter this year.

Geralt braces himself to absorb the Leshy’s blow, holding his sword above himself for all the protection that will give. He already knows it won’t be enough. At least if he can keep the Leshy occupied, it will give Yenn and Jaskier time to escape…

The Leshy’s arm seems to descend in slow motion. Geralt closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the hit that will kill him… but the impact never comes. His eyes snap open at the telltale _whoosh_ of a portal to see the Leshy’s arm disappear into a rip in the universe and reappear behind the Leshy’s own head, delivering the savage blow that should have been the end of Geralt to the Leshy itself.

Geralt glances at Yennefer; she’s wearing a look of grim determination, arms outstretched as she bends space to her will. As he watches, she lets the portal snap closed, severing the Leshy’s arm at the elbow. The Leshy shrieks at the loss if its limb and spins, searching the moonlit clearing for the source of its torment. As it turns, Geralt spies a series of cracks in its bark-like skin. Yennefer made sure the Leshy damaged itself. It’s an in.

Geralt instinctively aims a blast of Igni at the centre of the cracks in the Leshy’s armour, watching as the sap-like substance that acts like blood for the Leshy begins to glow red hot. If he can just get it to burn, the Leshy will cook from the inside…

Geralt’s plan is scuppered when the Leshy spins again, screaming its defiance and swinging its remaining arm. Yennefer has hampered the monster, but a Leshy that’s missing a limb is still deadly. Geralt raises his sword in his right hand and makes the Sign in preparation for Igni with his left as the Leshy charges. Before the Witcher can attack, though, the Leshy veers off towards the trees, sprinting away from Geralt and Yennefer.

Geralt almost sags with relief; maybe they’ve managed to scare it off. Perhaps they won’t have to fight until the monster is dead…

A rustle of paper and flash of sapphire shines through the brown-and-green of the forest curdles Geralt’s hope to dread. The Leshy isn’t running from Yennefer and Geralt; it’s running towards the easiest target in sight.

“Jaskier!” 

Geralt is sprinting before he finishes shouting the name, sword raised as panic spurs him forwards. He’s overtaken by a fireball thrown by Yenn that hits the cracked portion of the Leshy’s bark-skin just as a portal opens beside Jaskier. The bard does not hesitate, but jumps immediately through the portal. Geralt wonders for a wild moment when the bard learned to trust Yennefer so thoroughly that he’d jump into her portal without a second thought before he’s presented with a _very_ angry Leshy. It roars again and thrusts its remaining hand into the ground. 

“Oh ho, look who’s suddenly worried about my safety,” Jaskier’s voice says from somewhere to Geralt’s left, which is presumably where his portal let out. “Where was this concern for my wellbeing on King Niedamir’s mountains, might I ask?”

“Now is not the time, Jaskier,” Geralt grits out through clenched teeth. Tree roots, controlled by the Leshy’s buried hand, sprout from the ground and wrap around Geralt’s legs. He hacks at them with his sword, Vesemir’s shouted lessons ringing in his head. _A trapped Witcher is a dead Witcher. Blocking a blow is not as good as dodging it. Don’t give them the chance to hurt you._

“Oh and isn’t that just typical?” Jaskier demands. “When _will_ it be time, Geralt? There’s always something trying to kill at least one of us. If I have to wait until none of us is in mortal danger we’ll _never_ have this conversation. One of us has to take the initiative.”

“He’s right,” Yennefer says. A murder of crows under the control of the Leshy appears, their wings darkening the sky as the attempt to dive-bomb and incapacitate the trio. Their cawing threatens to drown out the rest of Yennefer’s words, but she waves her hand impatiently to call up a wind that blows the corvids out of the clearing, squawking as they go. “No time like the present, Geralt.”

Geralt finally succeeds in freeing himself just as the Leshy roars and swipes at his legs. Geralt jumps over the limb, rolling as he lands and springing back up to a battle stance the way Vesemir taught him. The Leshy is about to come for him again when a pine cone bounces off its shoulder, demanding its attention.

“Hey! Why would you eat a tough, rotten, emotionally unavailable Witcher when there is a master bard around? Come on, come and get it! I’ll taste much better than him!” Jaskier throws another pine cone that doesn’t even hit the Leshy this time. He tries to back away but trips over one of the roots that the Leshy summoned, landing on his arse with a _twang_ as his lute complains at the mistreatment.

“Jaskier, no!” Geralt stabs the Leshy’s calf to draw it away from the suicidal bard. “Don’t be an idiot!”

“Oh, look who’s calling who an idiot!” Jaskier complains bitterly from the forest floor. “I’m saving you, Geralt! You should be thanking me but you’re not, so I think you’ll find that makes _you_ the idiot!”

“Boys, boys,” Yennefer says, conjuring glowing ropes that wind around the Leshy, binding it head to foot. “You’re both idiots.” 

The Leshy screeches as it loses its balance. It topples lengthways like a felled tree, the _crash_ as it hits the ground echoing through the woods. 

“I didn’t call you an idiot,” Geralt mumbles. “I just said you shouldn’t be one.”

Jaskier stands with as much dignity as he can muster, which isn’t much, and brushes himself down haughtily. “Well, as we aren’t friends, Geralt, you don’t get to tell me what to do.”

Yennefer snorts. It’s the first time Geralt has heard her snort at something Jaskier said without it being a snort of derision. She sounds… amused? Supportive? She moves across the clearing, past the struggling Leshy, to stand beside Jaskier.

Geralt takes a deep breath and stares at the canopy for a moment, gathering his strength. “I’m sorry.”

Jaskier takes a step back in astonishment. For a moment his face shows nothing but surprise underlaid with softness, a look Geralt hasn’t seen since the Dragon Hunt, before the bard’s features harden once more.

“Two decades, Geralt. Two _decades._ That may be nothing to you and Yennefer, but it’s most of my life. And you screamed at me that for _two fucking decades_ I’d been nothing but a burden. You’re going to need to do better than ‘I’m sorry,’ Geralt.”

Geralt opens his mouth, but has no idea what to say. So it’s probably just as well that at that moment, the ensorcelled ropes that Yennefer summoned to bind the monster creak ominously and then snap as the Leshy thrashes against them. Before he can react, the Leshy is on its feet and howling, launching itself towards them with pure hatred in its empty skull eyes.

“Fuck,” the Witcher, Sorceress and Bard chorus.

Geralt fists his hand in Jaskier’s shirt and throws him bodily over a bush. Yennefer throws a volley of spells – spells for decay, as far as Geralt can tell, though magic never was his strongest subject. Portions of the Leshy wither and rot as Yennefer’s enchantments hit it, though it does not slow its charge. Geralt lifts his sword once more.

Both he and Yennefer dodge out of the way at the last minute, letting the Leshy waste its momentum and energy on crashing into the trees behind them.

“I am sorry, Jaskier,” Geralt shouts. It might be his last chance, after all. “What I said was not fair or true. I’m lucky to have you as a friend. Forgive me. Please?”

Through the Leshy’s groans, Yennefer’s panting breath, and the hammering of his own heart, Geralt hears Jaskier draw breath to reply. Though it should not be possible, Geralt’s panic grows deeper in anticipation of what he might hear.

“It’s moving too much. I can’t get a fix on it.” Yennefer yells, cutting off anything Jaskier might have been about to say. “Bard! I need a distraction.”

Jaskier stands behind his bush. “What, me? But I…” He stops short when he sees Yenn’s expression. “Yes, ma’am!” He shouts, snapping a salute before running towards the other end of the clearing and waving his hands above his head. “Hey Leshy! Hey! You want to be in a ballad? I’ll make you famous all over the continent…”

“Geralt. I need it still. Pin it.” Yennefer’s concentrating like he hasn’t seen her do since her attempted Djinn capture in Rinde. Twin streams of blood flow from her nose, mud and sweat coating the rest of her face. She is power given form. “Keep it steady. Now!”

The Leshy has already turned, frenzied and enraged by the pain and confusion of the fight. It starts to amble towards Jaskier, apparently unimpressed by the musician’s promises of fame and fortune, raising its arm in readiness to flatten the bard where he stands.

Geralt shouts, brandishing his sword and bringing it down point first, piercing the Leshy’s ankle and pinning it to the forest floor like a butterfly to a board. Thick sap-like spills from the wound in the monster’s skin, welling up dark, stinking and viscous to coat Geralt and his sword.

The Leshy’s motion is halted by its leg being stuck to solid stone by a sword. It screams in pain and frustration, jerking as if trying to free itself, but the sword holds fast. The monster cannot move.

Yennefer narrows her eyes, reaches out…

A portal appears in mid-air, bisecting the Leshy’s neck. Its head balances for a moment before toppling through the portal that’s directly beneath it, reappearing through the other side of the portal that Yennefer has put at her feet. The Leshy’s body collapses as its head rolls across the forest floor, its progress hampered by the antlers that sprout from the skull, stopping a few feet away from the Sorceress.

Jaskier walks over to the body and nudges it with a foot. “Definitely dead. Nice one, Yenn.”

Yennefer nods in agreement. “Yes. I need a drink.”

Jaskier nods eagerly. “Anything but Nilfgaardian beer.”

Yennefer laughs, her black curls tumbling down her neck as her head falls back in her mirth at the in-joke. 

Jaskier turns to stare at Geralt. “Did you mean it?” he demands.

Geralt nods. “Hn.”

Jaskier shakes his head in disbelief, laughing. “You don’t change, do you?”

“Neither do you,” Geralt counters.

“Well.” Jaskier spreads his hands expansively. “Why mess with perfection?”

Geralt can’t help himself. He grins. “Idiot,” he tells the bard.

“You’re the idiot,” Jaskier responds, laughing harder.

“I told you,” Yennefer tells them, rolling her eyes. “You’re _both_ idiots. Now let’s get out of the monster-infested woods, hmm?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer decides to visit an old friend for information, but more secrets than the trio bargained for begin to come out

Yennefer is not swaying with exhaustion. She knows this because she is putting a considerable amount of energy into very carefully not swaying with exhaustion.

Any other mage, even Vilgefortz – hell, even Archmage De Vries – would be unconscious by now, she knows. But Yennefer of Vengerberg is not any other mage. She forces herself to stand with her back a little straighter.

Yennefer’s mind drifts back to her early lessons at Aretuza and her lessons from Archmage de Vries: unskilled people create magic by giving some of their own energy, with disastrous results. Mages absorb energy from a Source, then release that energy again in a way that they can shape to their will. 

Yennefer doesn’t waste her resources absorbing and then converting energy; instead, she turns herself into a conduit, lets it flow through herself. It’s difficult; it takes balance. Yennefer thinks of it like a spinning plate. The plate must move at high speed or it will fall, but at the centre of the spinning disc there is a point that doesn’t move. That’s her. All around her, Chaos swirls, but Yennefer is steady. Yennefer stays still, controlling the vortex of magic around her.

It’s more difficult but less exhausting than other methods. But Yennefer has used a lot of energy in the last hour or so, and therefore has little to spare for inconsequential things. Inconsequential things like, to pick an example at random… a Witcher and a Bard who have forgiven each other in theory but are yet to put this theory into practice.

Yennefer marches through the forest at a punishing pace, knowing the boys can keep up. Geralt is stalking along in his customary silence on her left, a slight frown birthing two lines between his eyebrows. Jaskier is on her other side. Yenn had been a little worried that Jaskier might have been the worse for wear after their Leshy encounter, but he’s keeping up a constant stream of consciousness as he walks, complaining about everything from the weather to the state of the undergrowth, so Yennefer lets herself relax. As long as the singer is able to complain, he’s generally fine.

“…and why is everything so _wet?”_ Jaskier demands in a voice that is metaphorically holding their entire surroundings at arm’s length between thumb and index finger. His face shows nothing but disgust. “It hasn’t rained recently, and it’s too early for dewfall…”

No one answers him; Geralt because he rarely does in the first place, and Yennefer because she is too exhausted. Luckily, Jaskier has never met a one-sided conversation that he couldn’t stretch for hours.

“And did you have to portal us so _deep_ in the forest, Yez?” Geralt’s frown deepens when he hears the nickname. The sight makes Yennefer’s lips twitch despite herself. “Honestly, you could have at least put us closer to the edge so it wasn’t such a trek to get out of here…”

“Since when do you call her…” Geralt begins. 

Yennefer’s foot catches on a gnarled tree root, causing a half-stumble. She’s righted herself before Geralt can reach for her, even with his Witcher reflexes, but she curses herself all the same. She shouldn’t have let herself get so depleted. She learned young that you can’t rely on someone to be there to catch you if you trip. She’s been constantly proved right all the rest of her long life. The only truth is: do not fall unless you’re willing to pick yourself up again, because no one else can do it for you. She tosses her hair and strides onwards, even faster.

Jaskier hasn’t even noticed. “I don’t know where you’re taking us, Yez, but I hope it has wine. And a bath. And wine. And a good seamstress, or it’s curtains for this doublet – who knew a Leshy could cause such havoc to an innocent piece of clothing? Honestly, there’s no hope for them as creatures if they’re willing to attack pieces of artwork such as this. And the clothes that they’re wearing at the time, haha…”

The trees have been thinning around them as they walk. The trio finally breaks through the edge of the forest and is confronted with a castle, lurking low and sullen against the horizon. The sky and the ground are almost the same colour grey, only a few shades differentiating between them. Livestock graze half-heartedly in the fields the lie between the group and civilization as swallows reel in the air above them.

“Temeria!” Jaskier declares delightedly, spreading his arms as if to embrace their destination. “Oh, fabulous, Yez! They love me here. Just get me in the Royal banqueting hall, I’ll make enough for two doublets within the hour.”

“No,” Geralt counters, patting Roach on the neck to steady her as she dances beside him. “Remember the last time you were here? That Baroness promised to skin you if you showed your face again. I’m in no mood to have to save you from the flaying knife, Jaskier.”

“That won’t be necessary, Geralt,” Jaskier says icily. It’s the first time he’s directly addressed the Witcher since the Leshy. “I’ve been here since then. I was able to perform a small service for that Baroness, and now she’s an excellent friend of mine.”

“What service…” Geralt begins.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jaskier says with a false brightness with an edge sharper than flint. “All that’s important is that I’m not in a pile of shit, shovelling more on. That’s a _blessing,_ wouldn’t you say, Geralt?”

“Hn,” is all that Geralt is apparently able to say to that. It’s amazing how a six-foot-tall Witcher can look so much like a kicked puppy. Yennefer rolls her eyes and pushes onwards, sucking them both into her wake.

There are not many people on the road at this time in the morning, but those who are already out stare open-mouthed at their small procession. Yennefer automatically stands taller. She gathers her will and pulls Power from the air, concealing a wince at the cramping in her stomach that drawing Chaos always brings. Her hair rearranges itself into a more coiffed look, and tears in her leather travelling leggings and tunic stitch themselves back together. They can stare all they like, but all they will see is the front she chooses to put on. Her real self is safe and snug, protected at her core. They cannot hurt her.

There are guards at the large gate that they have to pass through to get into the castle. Yennefer does not have the energy to go through the rigamarole of gaining access, and so mutters an invisibility spell under her breath. Geralt utters a slight sigh as he realises what she’s done.

Jaskier is less subtle, looking around dramatically as if he’s dropped something before sarcastically addressing thin air. “What the… oh, right, well. That’s fine. We’ll see you inside, Yennefer?”

Yennefer tugs on his ear as she passes the bard, earning herself a yelp, then slips between a cart bearing many bundles of hay and a tailor’s apprentice bearing several rolls of silk and is in the palace before the guards can blink. She could have made the boys invisible too, but disappearing three people is considerably harder than disappearing one person, and she’s tired. Besides; they were getting on her nerves.

She’s not sure where to find the person she’s looking for, but she knows they must be here. Yenn closes her eyes to let herself see better. She reaches out with her mind, touching lightly on the thoughts of the people in the palace, first in her immediate vicinity and expanding until she’s covering most of the castle.

She’s considering giving up and stalking the fortress’s corridors and searching the old-fashioned way when she senses what she’s craving. A green-tasting mind, full of sunlight that feels like a cool mountain stream slipping through her fingers. She zeroes in on it, ignoring the tumult of other people and following the familiar call of this mind until she reaches a door. She drops her guise of invisibility as she raises her fist to knock when a voice calls “Come in, Yenna.”

Yenn shoulders the door open to be met with the grinning face of her best friend, and she cannot help but smile back. 

“Triss.”

“What the… oh, right, well. That’s fine. We’ll see you inside, Yennefer?”

Jaskier feels Yez tug on his ear as she passes him invisibly. He recognises the feel of her fingernails as they scratch gently at his skin, though she’s careful not to tug on the earring in his lobe. It’s that care more than anything that sends a shiver up his spine and causes him to yelp. Geralt, with his damn Witcher senses, picked up on that shiver if the hard set of his mouth is anything to go by. Jaskier rolls his eyes.

“Looks like we’ve been left to fend for ourselves,” he tries. Geralt has been even quieter than usual since the Leshy fight, which would be impressive if it wasn’t so infuriating. Jaskier had almost forgotten the silence that usually surrounds the Witcher; for a long time, all he had been able to focus on was their last parting, Geralt’s shouted words on the windswept mountainside pushing aside the more pleasant memories of his silence.

Jaskier shakes his head sharply. No thank you to that train of thought. He starts talking again, to drown the bad memories in his words. It’s a trick he’d learned as a child; if you’re talking nineteen to the dozen, the sadness doesn’t have time to catch up with you. Fortunately, they’ve reached the head of the queue and are now face-to-face with the guards. He smiles widely at them, but they don’t react. They’re leaning on their halberds in a way that suggests they would like to be able to use them on anyone who gives them an opportunity.

“Ah well, I’m sure we can persuade these fine gentlemen to let us in?” Jaskier beams at the soldiers reassuringly, sweeping a low and complicated bow. “Jaskier, friend to the Baroness and most skilled bard on the Continent and Master of the Seven Liberal Arts, at your service. I have come to grace your King’s court with my music. Would you be so kind as to allow us to pass?”

The guards look at each other briefly before their eyes flicker back to Jaskier.

“Piss off, Bard,” one of the soldiers suggests.

Geralt sighs and reaches for his coin purse. Jaskier sees its bottom bulging with the weight of coins, swinging like a pendulum where it hangs from the Witcher’s fist. A memory comes back to him: himself mounted on Roach behind Geralt in Rinde, choking on his own blood and gasping for breath that will not come. Geralt using his bag of coin as a bludgeon to assault the man standing between the Witcher and where he wanted to go.

The pendulum swing of the purse speeds up slightly as Geralt steps forwards.

Well, Jaskier hasn’t lost the power of speech this time. He steps smartly in front of the Witcher, shielding the guards from Geralt… and Geralt from the guards.

Jaskier peers more closely at the men barring the way. The one who advised him to piss off looks familiar…

“Ulric! Right?” 

The guard tries to keep his poker face, but Jaskier has had years of practice extrapolating whole mental states just from a muscle twitching in Geralt’s jaw. Ulric is an open book in comparison.

“It is! Ulric! You were there that night I played The Boar’s Head! You came up to me after my set and…”

“Alright! Yes, that was me…” the guard shifts uncomfortably. The movement means he’s loosened his grip on his halberd, which is absolutely fine by Jaskier.

Ulric had approached Jaskier following a set, looking extremely sheepish and red about the ears. Jaskier had expected a come on, but instead Ulric had asked for help in composing a poem to express his love for his partner, who he was hoping to…

Jaskier’s eyes flit downwards just as the light glances off the ring on the fourth finger of Ulric’s left hand. He grins.

“That little service I helped you with worked out well, then?” He asks. The other guard follows Jaskier’s gaze, then back up. Realisation dawns and he bursts out laughing.

“We’ve been married six months, Master Jaskier,” Ulric admits shyly. Jaskier can feel Geralt’s confusion flowing off the Witcher in waves, and steadily ignores it.

“Congratulations!” Jaskier says, taking Ulric’s hand and shaking it enthusiastically. “I knew that poetry would work; it was some of my best! I wish you great joy!”

“This is the one who got you and Alf together, Ulric?” the other guard asks. “Then I have to thank you too, Master Jaskier! I was so fed up of this one moaning and mooning and pining after Alfred, you wouldn’t believe it. If you’re the one who got them together so Rick here could finally stop sighing like a lovesick teenager, than you’re alright by me! Go on through.”

“Shut up, Stephen,” Ulric begs gruffly. Stephen only laughs and ruffles Ulric’s hair before they both move aside.

“Enjoy Temeria, Master Jaskier! Please let me know at the guardhouse if you’re going to play The Boar’s Head again – we owe you a drink!”

Jaskier laughs. “Thanks, lads! Keep up the good work!”

Jaskier strolls through the gates to the castle, Geralt following close behind him. 

Triss is pouring tea into the last of four cups when Jaskier and Geralt appear at the door. The Witcher has been here before, Yennefer knows, but he still gazes around the room with suspicion. Yenn watches him take in the hanging bunches of dried herbs, the tomes full of elemental magic, the cheerful ornaments Triss has dotted about the place, as if checking them off an inner list. Unbidden, a bubble of fondness rises in her chest. She forces it back down.

“Hello you two.” Triss indicates two chairs. “Sit, please. You must be tired. Yenn says you fought a Leshy?”

Jaskier drops himself heavily into a chair. There are little biscuits perched on the saucers of their teacups; he scoffs his instantly. “Triss! You’re an angel. I wouldn’t say we fought the Leshy so much as it interrupted a fight we were already having… but I hope we can still sell its head to you?”

Triss nods, laughter colouring her eyes. “Yes. It’s been a menace for a few months. I’ll pay you well.”

“Excellent,” Jaskier reaches over as if to steal Geralt’s biscuit, but stalls his fingers before they can get there, pulling his hand back as if fearful of being burned. “What’s the news?”

“Triss was just telling me who’s leading the search.” Yennefer knows she doesn’t have to specify what’s being searched for. Everyone in the room knows that they are there to protect Ciri.

“Who?” Geralt asks, leaning forwards. Yennefer watches as he palms his biscuit and slips it discreetly – or, what he thinks is discreetly – onto Jaskier’s saucer.

“Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach.” Triss replies, pouring herself another cup of tea. Yennefer reaches over and takes her free hand.

Jaskier blinks. “It must take him ages to sign a contract.”

Yennefer laughs and shares a look with Jaskier. “You’re right. Who would choose a name that long?”

Geralt Roger Eric du Haute-Bellegarde rolls his eyes and sighs. “How do you know this?”

“There are some benefits to maintaining good relations with the Brotherhood – not many, I grant you,” Triss allows. “But some. I overheard Artorius speaking with Fringilla. Cahir was sent by the Emperor himself.”

“Why is he after Ciri?” Geralt demands.

Triss carefully keeps her eyes on her tea as she takes a sip. Only Yennefer hears the other Mage’s psychic question: “How much do they know?”

Yennefer answers telepathically: “Nothing.”

A slight tightening of the mouth is all that shows Triss’s displeasure. Nevertheless, she lies smoothly for Yennefer. “I don’t know, Geralt.”

Geralt grunts in frustration, the line of his shoulders tight as he glares at the table.

“Who is this Cahir working with?” Jaskier asks through a mouthful of biscuit.

“He is – or rather, _was,_ according to Yennefer – working with Stefan Skellen. He’s also joined forces with a powerful mage, though we’re not sure who. Oh, and that powerful mage’s lackey. Someone called Rience?” Triss frowns in confusion as Jaskier and Yennefer visibly tense on hearing the name. “What? What have I missed?”

Jaskier’s blue eyes meet Yennefer’s from across the table. For a moment she could swear they were back in the dark stink of the pigsty, surrounded by Rience and his sadistic cronies. The strange, strangled sounds Jaskier had made in his agony when Rience had taken away his voice echo in her mind’s ear… Yennefer forces the memory to dispel.

“We’ve come across Rience before,” Yennefer admits eventually. “He won’t be a problem. Get me in a room with him and give me ten seconds and a fireball and he’s a non-issue. We need to find out who he’s working for.”

Jaskier had paled at the mention of Rience, and still looks rather seasick now. Yennefer sees Geralt turn to look the bard full in the face for perhaps the first time in her memory.

“What happened with Rience?”

Jaskier’s laugh aims to be light-hearted way but falls short. “Oh, nothing. We just met a few months ago.”

“What happened?” the Witcher demands.

Jaskier starts fiddling furiously with his signet ring, a sure sign that he’s distressed. “Oh, well, this and that, you know how things can be when you’re on the road…”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says it softly, like it’s a command. Like a promise.

“Geralt...” Yennefer warns. Geralt turns to her.

“You know what happened?” he demands.

“Well, yes, Geralt. I was there. But you weren’t, and if Jaskier doesn’t want to…”

Jaskier gives her a small smile. “It’s okay, Yez.”

Geralt’s eyes flicker between Yennefer and the bard a few more times. “What happened?

“Oh, not much,” Jaskier stops fiddling with his ring to fold his arms faux-casually. “Just a touch of… torture?”

 _“What?!”_ Geralt demands. Triss gasps and covers her mouth with her hands.

Yennefer helps herself to another biscuit.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> secrets are revealed, harsh truths are spoken

Jaskier holds his hands up as if in surrender, like he’s scared of what Geralt might do. His sapphire sleeves fall away from his wrists to reveal scars that Geralt had somehow missed until now. Geralt’s stomach drops as peers more closely at them. They aren’t like Yenn’s scars – they’re thicker, rougher. The kind of scar you’d get from bindings tying you tight, biting into your skin and tearing your flesh, rending muscle from tendon and bone. 

Geralt might throw up the tea he just drank.

“I didn’t tell them anything, don’t worry!” Jaskier laughs, a trace of bitterness tainting the sound. “Your secrets are safe.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Geralt growls, frustrated that this is what Jaskier thinks would be his first concern. Then, a beat late, Geralt realises the implication of what the bard just told him. “Are you… wait. Do you mean they were asking you… about _me?_ About Fiona?”

Jaskier’s face contorts, as if he thinks he’s said too much. Sunlight filters through the high windows of Triss's chambers, turning the bard's hair auburn where it hits it.

“It was his own fault,” Yennefer says as she sips her tea. “Half the continent is out looking for the Witcher and his charge, and this fool is wandering the countryside – alone, no less – and singing about the White Wolf and his Ward to anyone who will listen. It’s only a wonder he wasn’t caught _sooner.”_

Jaskier turns to her, grateful for the distraction. He’s put on that demeanour he uses when he thinks joking will be less painful than the truth, all bluster and exaggeration to hide the terror beneath. “Oh, thanks, Yez. So it’s _my_ fault that, when his offer to bribe me didn’t work, Rience and his ‘friends’ kidnapped me, trussed me up like a turkey at Yule, and hung me from the ceiling to try and make me talk?”

“They did _what!?”_ Geralt is on his feet, without actually intending to do so. Jaskier rolls his eyes and tugs him back down into his seat.

“I’m fine, Geralt. Yennefer turned up in the nick of time and killed two of Rience’s heavies without even trying. She’d have killed Rience too if he hadn’t got his boss – whoever they are – to portal him away." Jaskier's eyes sparkle with dark glee as he grins at Yennefer across the table. "She managed to give him a parting gift, though.”

Geralt looks at Yenn, whose malign grin is thrown into dancing light and shadow when she conjures a fireball in her palm for a moment before extinguishing it between her fingers. “I sent some pretty hot stuff after him. It’ll take him a while to heal, even with the excellent magical care that his boss is probably providing.”

“Why…” Geralt cuts himself off. If it weren’t for Ciri, he’d ask why Jaskier hadn’t just told Rience what he knew. Protecting a useless Witcher isn’t worth the cost of Jaskier’s safety. And, after what happened on the dragon hunt, Geralt wouldn’t have blamed Jaskier for taking the money and selling Geralt out the first chance he got. But he knows that Jaskier would never do that. Whatever else Jaskier is, he has always been loyal.

“I’m sorry,” is all Geralt can think to say. It falls limp from his tongue, not enough. It’s never enough.

Jaskier shrugs. “I’m fine,” he lies with the easiness of practice. “I told you: Yez was there.”

Ah yes. ‘Yez’. Geralt had been surprised that Yennefer had let the bard give her a pet name, but it’s not surprising after they survived something like that together. Geralt knows better than most how surviving experiences like that can make people close. The bond between him and his brothers is proof of that.

If Yenn hadn’t been there though… Geralt’s eyes drift unintentionally back to the scars on Jaskier’s wrists, pale in contrast to the weather-worn skin that is universal in travelling bards. Jaskier notices, pulls his sleeves down self-consciously in an attempt to cover them. Geralt’s imagination spirals out of control without his permission, thinking about how the scars got there and how much worse the injuries would have been if Yennefer hadn’t been there to save him. Rience had gone for the hands, the limbs Jaskier uses to play and write. His livelihood and life had almost been ripped away, all because the bard - that sweet, ever-curious idiot - wouldn’t give Geralt up to his enemies.

Geralt reaches out towards Jaskier, slowly enough that the bard could pull away if he wanted to. Jaskier remains still, lets Geralt fold lute-strong hands in his sword-callused ones.

“Thank you, Jaskier. Can you forgive me?”

Jaskier tilts his head to the side. “We’ll work on it.”

Jaskier tugs at his hand. Geralt is reluctant to let it go, but he wouldn’t trap Jaskier for anything. To Geralt’s surprise, though, Jaskier isn’t pulling away; instead, he uses his newly-freed hand to cup the side of Geralt’s face. Geralt leans in to the touch before he can stop himself.

He’d almost lost this. He’d almost lost it because he’d sent Jaskier away from that windswept mountain peak, hadn’t been there to protect him. He’d assumed that by forcing Jaskier away, he’d be keeping him out of danger – but that is obviously the opposite of what happened. Geralt silently thanks any and all gods who might be listening that they are sitting here in this warm room, crowded with magical paraphernalia and people Geralt loves. The alternative is too painful to think about.

“I’m surprised that this reconciliation took so long,” Triss says, breaking the spell as she gets up to bring more biscuits. Geralt can’t help but smile; she always was a feeder.

“That’s true,” Yenn observes. “You two have had squabbles before but it’s never lasted this long. It doesn’t normally stick.”

“Yes, well.” Jaskier gives a small smile. “This time was a little different.”

“It’s my fault,” Geralt says.

“No argument from me,” Jaskier says, only half-joking.

“No, I…” Geralt takes a deep breath. “I used a Witcher trick. To make it stick. All the times I shouted at you before, it didn’t work. But I wanted it to take, that time. I thought that… I thought I’d be keeping us both safe if we didn’t associate with each other anymore, so I made it last.”

Jaskier narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I… it’s hard to explain. It’s one of the Witcher powers, one we don’t talk about much. We can… tune in to the monsters we’re hunting. Become one with them psychologically, almost. Then we take all the evil and hate and malign energy that they exude, and turn it back on them to deplete them.” He turns and nods towards Triss. “I used that technique on the Striga princess. When we’re being trained, we’re drilled on using every trick in our arsenal until it’s instinctive. We almost lose control over it – we just do whatever it takes to survive, instinctively. That technique is one of the weapons in our armoury.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Jaskier asks, though from the look on his face he probably already expects the truth. Geralt glances at Yennefer and sees that she too has worked it out, and is staring at him like he’s the biggest fucking idiot that she’s ever seen.

Which of course he is.

“I… it’s a simple enough concept to reverse. You can take the negative feelings of yourself and amplify them outwards, put them on to someone else. I was angry from the conversation I’d had before, with Borch. With Yenn.” Yennefer snorts. “I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. I was feeling attacked, hunted. And then you were there, Jaskier. I couldn’t bear to lose you too, so I decided to send you away on my own terms. And I… I took all the bad feeling from earlier in the day and I dumped it on you all at once.” Geralt forces his eyes to meet the blue ones opposite him. “I’m sorry.”

Jaskier tugs both hands away completely this time, and does not cup Geralt’s face. Instead he pulls them to his chest, scrabbling at his doublet as if the material can give him some reassurance.

“You damn fool,” Yennefer breathes. She reaches for the bard, rests her hand on his forearm. Jaskier lays his hand over hers without even thinking about it.

“You… you manipulated my emotions, by magic? You used your abilities against me like that?” The bard’s eyes are wide enough that Geralt can see his own grim reflection staring back at himself.

The hot, crushing guilt that Geralt had convinced himself for two years that he hadn’t felt comes crashing over him all at once. It will drown him, and he deserves it. Jaskier is looking at Geralt like he’s frightened of what the big bad Witcher might do. He didn’t even do that as a teenager in Posada, or running away from sea-dwelling warriors in Bremervoord, or in Rinde when the Djinn cursed his throat, or in Novigrad when any friend might have been a Doppler enemy, or on the dragon hunt or any other time he’d nearly died while in the company of the Witcher. But he looks scared now.

“Jaskier…” Geralt wants to reach for him, but doesn’t dare to. He could not bear to see the bard flinch away from his touch.

They are interrupted by a knock at the door. Triss jumps up to answer it, smoothing the skirt of her high-necked dress as she does so. She pauses at the door. “That’ll be my informant. You shouldn’t be seen here. There’s a storeroom through that door behind you. Go and wait for me there!”

Yenn is already on her feet. She grabs Geralt’s collar in one hand and Jaskier’s sleeve with the other, hauling them in to the storeroom and closing the door behind her, shutting out the light and muffling the sound of the room outside.

Geralt shifts uncomfortably. “Storeroom” was a generous word to describe the space the three of them have been forced in to. “Cupboard” would have been more accurate, or perhaps “alcove”. His back is squashed uncomfortably against a shelf stacked high with jars full of foul-smelling decoctions. The ceiling is hung with drying herbs and other things he’d rather not inspect to discover the nature of. Phials and test tubes line the walls, just waiting for a careless person to knock into and send them all crashing to the floor. Jaskier is squashed against his left side, holding his lute case between them like a shield. Yennefer is on his other side, with an ear pressed against the door and an elbow digging in to Geralt’s stomach.

“You messed with my emotions? What the fuck Geralt!?” Jaskier demands, clutching his lute tighter. 

“Now is not the time, Jaskier,” Geralt grits through his teeth. Jaskier most likely can’t see in the gloom, but Geralt’s eyes have already adjusted. The Bard looks stricken, just as he had on the mountain all that time ago. 

“Not the time!? I think I get to decide when the time is right to talk about the emotional manipulation I've been subjected to, Geralt, and I choose right the fuck now!" Jaskier is incandescent, drawing himself up with righteous fury. Geralt always forgets that they're almost of a height - Jaskier makes it easy to forget. He normally prefers to present himself as harmless... until he doesn't. Geralt feels almost intimidated. "I’m a Bard, for Melitele’s sake! We work with our emotions! We live and die by them! How am I supposed to experience things, write poetry and ballads, when I can’t trust myself? When those feelings might have been _implanted_ in me by someone else?”

Geralt can’t help the frustrated growl that escapes his throat. 

“I told you, it wasn’t intentional. I said I was sorry.”

“Jaskier’s right, you know,” Yennefer says in a low voice. “Now shut _up._ I’m trying to listen.”

Geralt’s shock at Yennefer’s defence of Jaskier shocks him so much that for a moment he can’t speak. Jaskier, as ever, is ready and willing to jump in to any sort of silence.

“Words about my emotions are how I navigate the world, Geralt. They’re my _livelihood._ How am I supposed to feel when I hear you’ve been changing them to suit you? How would you feel if I took your swords away, but don’t worry, it was only once and for your own good?”

Jaskier glares in defiance just to the left of Geralt, where he apparently thinks the Witcher’s face actually is. 

“That’s different…” Geralt begins.

Jaskier huffs, cutting him off. “No it’s _not.”_

“Yes, it is!” Geralt insists, louder than is probably wise when hiding in a confined space.

“Lebioda’s sake, but you haven’t changed a bit, have you?” Jaskier turns his eyes to the heavens for a moment, as if petitioning them for help, before looking back at Geralt. “You were always telling me to shut up. Was this your roundabout way of doing it, by trying to steal my muse?”

“No…”

The volume of Jaskier’s voice drops so low that even Geralt, with his Trial-created sensitivity, has to strain to hear. “At least when Rience tried to silence me, he was open about it. He didn't pretend to be my friend while he was doing it.” Clear blue eyes gaze into Geralt’s. “How am I supposed to trust you again, Geralt?”

The words hit like a body blow from a Fiend. Geralt practically gasps under the weight of what his best friend just told him. He wants to reach out, to gather the bard to him, drop to his knees and implore Jaskier to forgive him. Instead, he keeps his hands balled at his sides. “Jaskier… please understand…”

Yennefer huffs in frustration, standing up straighter and turning to glare at both of them. She’s obviously enhanced her vision with a spell, and uses her improved senses to glare daggers right into Geralt's eyes, and jab him hard in the chest with her finger.

“No, Geralt. You took your magic and you used it to toy with someone. _Again._ You can try and justify it all you want, say that you panicked and had to subdue a Djinn, or you acted on instinct and used the only weapon at your disposal, but that doesn’t change the fact that _you did this._ You hurt people. And it’s not the first time. You’ve done it again and again.”

Geralt bristles despite himself. “You affect people with magic all the time, Yenn…”

“Yes, I do!” Yennefer hisses, spreading her arms. “I’m a mage! But when I use magic, at least I own it. I admit to it. I take _responsibility._ That’s what having power is, in the end. Taking responsibility for what you choose to do with that power. And if you can’t do that, you don’t deserve to have any.”

Geralt looks between Jaskier and Yenn on either side of him, feeling the shelf pressing in to his back. Every instinct he has is screaming at him that he’s under attack, that he needs to come out fighting.

He opens his mouth.

Light floods the tiny storage space as Triss flings the door open. Geralt feels his pupils constrict and his retinas light-adapt almost instantly as Yennefer curses and lifts her own sight-enhancing spell. 

“Triss? What is it?” Yennefer asks. Triss is pale, wringing her hands as though trying to tangle her fingers together. Yennefer steps forward, gripping the other mage’s shoulders gently. “Triss? Speak to me. What did you find out?”

Geralt steps out of the storage area behind Yennefer, feeling Jaskier exit immediately after and step smartly away as if trying to put as much distance between himself and the Witcher as he can.

Triss waves a hand and four glasses of brandy materialise on her workbench, standing out against the vast amounts of flora and fauna that litters its surface. “I think we’re going to need these,” she tells them before picking up one of the glasses and downing the alcohol in one, wincing as the alcohol burns down her throat.

“Why?” Yennefer asks guardedly. 

Triss finally looks up and meets each of their gazes in turn.

“I know who’s hunting Ciri.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the abilities Geralt describes using in this chapter are canon, and he does use them against the Striga. i thought that it was a cool concept when i read it in the books and i wanted to explore it more.


End file.
